


Tempus Fugit.

by Alcalexandria



Category: Dark Fate - Fandom, Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon compliant-ish, Day 4: Misunderstanding/Jealousy, Drace Week 2020, F/F, Future War, Hey - don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27338827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcalexandria/pseuds/Alcalexandria
Summary: Drace Week 2020Day 4: Misunderstanding/ JealousyDani knows she's hurting Grace. She knows she has no choice.
Relationships: Grace Harper/Dani Ramos
Comments: 25
Kudos: 103
Collections: Drace Week





	1. 1. Future Perfect.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allforconniebonacieux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allforconniebonacieux/gifts).



> Apologies for posting too late for the fic week. Dedicating this fic to allforconniebonacieux for flying the flag almost single handed throughout, I hope they won't mind.
> 
> Any feedback is hugely appreciated, it makes it a million times more rewarding to post something.

Commander Ramos held her half-step, sighed, and stopped.

Until right that second, she’d been heading back to her quarters, fully intending to dump herself into bed the moment she did. But she’d had a sudden impulse to head for the Mess instead, and... maybe there was something to it.

Rationally she knew she _should_ head back. She was tired - it had been a long day, and she had made decisions tonight that made her sick in her heart and would make tomorrow even worse.

But maybe that was as good a reason as any? To take some time to regroup when she had the chance?

She made up her mind.

She turned and headed down the side tunnel in the direction of the Mess. 

It would be shut down this late of course, but if ever she had earned a perk of rank, she did today. She made sure the lights were off and she couldn’t hear anyone before heading in, breathing a sight of relief when the coast was clear. She keyed the door release code quickly, pushed in the door, and gasped before she could catch herself.

_“Shit!”_

Grace.

Of _course_ , Grace.

Sitting on the end of a long bench, so she could lean against the wall with her long legs tucked under her, in only the light of the nearest lamp.

It hadn’t even occurred to her as a _risk_ she’d be here - Grace wasn’t much of a drinker, especially not alone. Glancing around, Ramos wasn’t even sure how she got in. Most other nights, a quiet hour or two in only Grace’s company was something to wish for - but tonight was tonight. And tonight Grace was very literally the last person Ramos wanted to see. 

She’d seen her around a few times since she’d… well, since, but there’d always been somebody else around to mitigate the awkwardness a little. And Grace – understandably – had seemed to want to avoid her otherwise too.

It was fine. She’d… missed her, of course, but it was fine. And it was practical, and probably for the best. Grace didn’t deserve to feel embarrassed just for being honest, and the Commander couldn’t afford the distraction. It was inevitable they’d have to talk about it again eventually, of course, but she’d hoped to do it on the right terms.

This was… not going to be that, she could have sensed that from the air. Ramos wasn’t sure she could bear what it might be instead; not with Grace, not tonight.

She took a deep breath and cleared her throat, feeling foolish.

“I uh… I was just going to grab something and head back to my quarters. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Grace looked up at her slowly, like she was on a delay, her eyes dimmed.

“Not disturbing me,” she said after a moment, but her flat tone did nothing to set the Commander at ease.

Ramos’ heart sank. 

She definitely didn’t want to have this conversation now – she wanted more than anything to turn on her heel and escape. But she sure as hell wasn’t leaving until she was sure Grace was… okay, she supposed. Her tone, her posture, the fact she was here after hours, all of it - she wouldn't have needed to know Grace as well as she did to know she wasn't anywhere good. Even her silhouette felt… well. Ramos wasn’t sure. “Not okay”. 

She headed for the bar grimly. She stretched over the roughly built counter, and pawed for the big bottle the Mess crew kept stashed there for her.

“Everything alright Grace?” she asked, casually as she could manage, as she headed back towards the benches.

“Sure,” she said, just as tonelessly as before. “Fine.”

Cold, and flat.

“Thought you’d still be in the field?” Ramos said as she poured herself half a cup, and approached Grace’s bench slowly.

Grace resumed her own drink.

“Comms relay failed so the mission was scrubbed for now. Got back a few hours ago.”

Ramos nodded, like they were just having a normal, casual conversation about life on base, like any other time.

“…You weren’t even going to fucking tell me Dani?”

There it was.

It stung enough that Ramos did well not to flinch - but really, she'd been expecting it. She’d probably been bracing herself for Grace to scream it at her since she’d walked in. That she hadn’t even raised her voice to ask it in the end was somehow worse.

“I wanted to tell you in person, as soon as you got back tomorrow. I wanted to explain properly, so you’d understand.”

Grace sniffed with disgust.

“I don’t care what anybody else thinks of me Dani, but I’d hate to think _you_ think I’m that fucking stupid.”

This time, Dani did flinch.

“- An uplink tower? When was the last time we got anything from an uplink tower? We’d hold it a day and then have to pull back, with nothing worth shit on the blackbox to show for it.”

She made a derisive grunt.

“- Next time you want me out of the way just give me some fucking… fingerpainting or something to keep me occupied.”

She tipped back her drink tastelessly. Dani took a pained deep breath, and sat down.

“There are things I can’t tell you Grace, you know that.”

“- You know, I was thinking,” Grace said, like she’d said nothing, “All the years we’ve known each other, and I don’t think I’ve ever asked you anything else twice. Just this. This is the only goddamn thing. When you rejected me for the trials –“

“Grace I didn't-“

“- When you _rejected_ me for the trials, I sucked it up. Even when I told you how I… _felt,_ and you… Even then. I sucked it up. I _respected_ it, I respected that completely, and I stayed out of your way, and I kept my shit to myself. This is the _only_ thing. The only goddamn thing I ever asked you for. And you made sure I was a hundred miles away when you gave it to somebody else.”

“That is not-“

Grace’s eyes snapped up to her and they looked cold in a way Dani didn’t think she’d ever seen before.

“I know you can’t always tell me everything Dani, for Christ’s sake I know that, but at least don’t fucking _lie_ to me. I might not be one of your... chosen fucking few, but I know the difference in that.”

Ramos wavered for just a moment, but Grace saw the mask recover quickly; the _Commander’s_ face - not Dani’s.

Grace looked back to her cup, pointedly, trying to collect herself in case she said more than she wanted, in case she said anything that could be mistaken for lashing out.

She could feel the Commander watch her patiently as she did, and she hated it. It made her feel stupid, like Dani saw her as some petulant child throwing a tantrum over missing out on a treat.

“Grace…” she said gently, “There are reasons I need Hadrell for the Spearhead task force, and there are reasons I need you doing the uplink towers. They’re not reasons I can share with you at this time. I’d hope you respect my command enough to know I didn’t make those decisions lightly. I put the people I needed where I needed them, because the parts they’re playing are vital. I need them to be right. Everything has to go right from now on, the stakes are _so_ high.”

Grace scoffed again. She wasn’t sure which part of it felt most like another lie; but she knew it hurt at least as much as anything else to hear Dani do this to her, to feed her some basic tactical bullshit about how, _really,_ the pointless busywork detail was every bit as important as leading the most important task force in human history. How much it hurt to think Dani thought that was what she cared about.

For a moment, Grace was genuinely afraid she’d get so angry her eyes would water. She would hate that. She would fucking hate Dani to think she was just feeling sorry for herself for missing out on a promotion after a few too many. She couldn’t give her that satisfaction.

“I just thought…” she started, as carefully as she could “-I just thought maybe we’d been through enough together that you’d have had the decency to tell me yourself. That you’d get why it mattered so much, that’d you’d have done that. Instead of sending me off on bullshit errands so you wouldn’t have to, in case I fucked something up. There are times... There were times I don't understand now if you never figured me out enough to know that.”

Dani said nothing.

She let the yawning distance between them harden, and something about it felt ugly and permanent.

Grace was right to invoke all they’d been through together. She was right to talk about the years they’d spent together; she’d have been more than right to point out everything Dani owed her, everything she’d given and given up for her without hesitation.

She knew none of this was fair. She knew Grace didn’t deserve to be this kind of hurt, and she knew she was responsible for it. It wasn’t fair to deny her anything, it wasn’t fair to let her think like this, it wasn’t fair to leave her like this. 

But she also knew she’d had no choice.

So she said nothing.

They sat across from each other, trying to come to terms with the uncomfortable new distance between them, for what felt like a very long time.

Grace spoke again eventually.

“Can I ask you something Dani? Honestly?”

“Of course. Anything.”

Grace looked at her sadly, like it was cruel to pretend that was obvious now.

She lowered her eyes back to her cup.

“Was there ever anything I could have done, to have made you want to choose me?”

Dani felt lead settle in her stomach.

“Oh Grace, it was never about that.”

“Forget it. Never mind.”

She stood up to leave too quickly, and Dani grabbed her wrist without thinking.

“No, Grace, please don’t. You wanted to talk about this, let me now.”

Grace didn't look at her, but her expression clouded. Some of it drink maybe, but not all.

Dani was disturbed by how difficult she was to read now. Usually she knew everything Grace was thinking and feeling – mostly, she seemed to be the only one who could. This distance, this barrier between them, was so new and alien, but it already felt like it was scarring over in a way that might never be fixed.

Eventually Grace took a deep, unhappy breath and grudgingly sat back down.

She said nothing for so long Dani was almost relieved when she poured herself a drink from the big bottle without asking.

“Used to dream it was me, y’know. Imagine I was. Imagined I could be that for you.”

“Who?” Dani asked, weary to hear herself - she knew the answer already. She just had to ask anyway, as though she was reading lines written for her decades ago.

“The Soldier. _God,_ I’d have given anything to be that for you. I would. But I did something wrong, or… I’m not right or something. Sorry. I’m sorry. For whatever it was.”

“Grace, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“- I’m not _that_ dumb at least Dani. I know what Spearhead is for. I can see it all over you when you talk about it. I know it’s nearly over, I know they’re going to find the TDE with you. The Soldier and the rest of them. I know what happens next, I know how it goes.”

“Well then you know the ending too so why the hell would you dream of _that,_ Grace?” Dani said, with a flicker of anger that surprised them both. “Don’t you dare sit there and tell me you _dream_ of that, don't you dare.”

Grace looked at her blankly, like she’d stopped making sense. Like they’d started speaking entirely different languages at some point, and she wasn't sure when.

Dani pulled herself back in frustration.

They spent a miserable few moments more in silence as she tried to regroup.

“How much have I ever told you _about_ The Soldier?” she started, when she was finally confident she could stay calm.

Grace frowned. It might as well have been a rhetorical question. 

Every soldier probably daydreamed sometimes, same as she did once, that they might be _The_ Soldier. The mythic soldier, the one who’d go back to save the Commander’s life. Ramos made a point of never being drawn on a single physical detail, probably just so they could – the point of the story was always that any one of them, and anyone, could rise to whatever moment came for them. Everyone knew the story of The Soldier, and everybody knew the same story. Ramos had told it a million times. It was gospel, long since crystallized in the telling.

She knew just how much she’d told her. 

“I think you loved them,” she said, figuring she might as well take a big swing. Might as well find out officially, now she had nothing to lose.

“Yes.” Dani confirmed simply. “I did. Very much, and all my life since.”

Grace leaned back, surprised she’d admit even that out loud. Even now - especially to her, now.

“I loved them. And I knew a long time ago there was never going to be anybody else for me.”

Grace turned away.

But why? Hadn't she known that already? What difference did it make now to hear her say it?

Dani took a long drink, and drifted a little, on alcohol or memories, or both.

“Brave. And so beautiful, I wish you only knew. Even when… even at the end, when there was all that blood, beautiful blue eyes were all I could see. I said I was sorry, for everything. There is so much more I wish I’d said.”

She took another mouthful and relaxed back, as though just to share a fragment of that burden was a great relief.

“In answer to your question, no. There was never any way at all you could have made me want to choose you.”

Grace heard this and bowed as though she’d been struck. Dani could only let her.

“There was nothing more you could have done. There was nothing you could have done less. You haven't done anything wrong. It was just never up to you."

If it was any comfort at all, it was a cold one.

Dani sat back straight, with a little effort.

"The _Soldier._ Not even a name."

She sniffed contemptuously. 

"Story’s so _important_ to everyone. I made it important, I needed it. I tell it like this big hero story with a big hero ending, and people love it. They need it. But Grace, I hate it. It isn’t a happy ending to me, can you understand that?"

Grace looked up at her, unconvinced.

"I know I’ve done wrong to you, I know I have, and I don’t deserve your… your pity. But think of what it’s like to have to tell the tragedy of your life over and over and over again and hear people cheer about it. Somebody you _loved._ You tell the story of the worst thing you’ve ever done and see somebody… somebody you’ve been through a lot with, and hear them say they want that?”

Dani poured more, knowing she’d already had too much, that she was leaning over her cup just too much, she was talking too much.

“You are right, it’s almost over. Everything is happening so fast, and I’m running out of time, I can feel it. I don’t know if I’ve done anything different to any of the times before, and I don’t know how much time I have left to figure out if I haven’t.”

She rubbed her face, and sighed.

“I’ve had to live with all this for twenty years Grace, and I honestly don't know how much longer I can do it.”

“Don’t say shit like that,” said Grace reflexively.

She was unsure of her footing in much of the territory they’d gone into, but she understood that with conviction.

“It’s true. Tell you another secret,” she said, and didn’t wait for a reply, “The truth is, I know I can’t do it again. It cannot happen again. I knew then. No matter what happens, I could never do that again. To love somebody like that and lose them like that, to do that to them again, no. Not again. It doesn't matter what happens to the rest of the war, I just can’t choose to do that again, I haven’t got what it takes to do a second time. I don’t have it left in my heart. I am selfish.”

Grace moved back uneasily, and shook her head.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I know how that sounds. I know what you must think of me. But it’s the truth. That’s why I need you to help me _now_ Grace, so much. Because I need you to help me make sure it doesn’t come to that. There is not going to be another Soldier this time. I won’t make that choice again, I can't. If the time comes… I know I won’t do it. Saving the whole fucking world wouldn’t mean anything to next to losing… next to doing that again. Do you understand?”

Grace could only look at her, shaking her head. She didn’t - she understood so little of what Dani meant by all this.

She didn’t understand this pain Dani was in - couldn’t she understand how important she was, how gladly anyone in their right mind would give their life for her?

But she did know it was real to Dani, she knew Dani meant it. This love she had, that had sustained her and eaten her away in equal measure, for all these years, it was real, the realest thing left to her. Beyond the myths and stories, in the end, for Dani it had all been about love, and the painful loss of it she’d had to carry through the war, the resistance, through the end of the world.

What a love that had abided for so long, and so fiercely, for someone she had known for only days so many years ago. How core to who Dani was now that this all seemed to be in the end stages, how core to what she wanted her people to value.

“I’m sorry for so much I’ve done wrong by you Grace,” she said, with a sincerity Grace once flattered herself to think was reserved for her; “I couldn’t ask for a better soldier, or a better anything than you’ve always been to me, and I can’t give you a single thing you deserve for it now. But I hope some day I can tell you everything, when this is all done, and I hope you’ll understand then. I hope you’ll remember everything I told you here, so you’ll know I said everything I could. But in the meantime… I need to ask more of you. I need you to help me. If I don’t get it right, this time, there is no Plan B. Please help me do what I need to do so I don’t have to fail in the end.”

Grace's mind raced. She wasn’t sure where all her anger had gone.

What Dani had said was madness, and she should be looking at her like a madwoman – she had set out a terrible binary, that she would keep her loved one safe this time or surrender the world.

But the way she spoke was so real, that love was so real. If all of this, the war, the resistance, all of this was rooted in that pain and that love, then… wasn’t it only right that was how the end might be decided? If she had built the resistance for them on that, wasn’t it the least they owed her, for all she’d done for them, found in them?

She didn’t know what Dani was asking of her, or why she was always so easy to believe in - but she did know she was deadly serious. It was true she didn’t ask anything lightly – Grace did know that beyond a doubt. Everything she did was planned and weighed carefully, and re-examined forever afterwards.

She ran her hands over her hair unhappily.

“I don’t understand any of this.”

Dani smiled sadly at her.

“I can’t wait to explain it all to you. When we have won. I can’t wait to laugh about it when you have your first grey hair and I am retired on a beach somewhere complaining about my joints, and we’ve invented good cheap wine again. Come to me then and I’ll tell you everything.”

Grace tried to smile.

“Please Grace. Just help me get this right. I need you more than ever to help me get this right. There is no one else I can trust so much.”

Grace sighed, slouching into her seat in defeat.

Did Dani make everyone feel like this when they stepped out of line? Was that how it worked? In the end, after everything, was she just another hopeless footsoldier among thousands, a cultist she'd figured out how to keep wrapped around her little finger?

Probably.

But in spite of it all, she knew that no matter what, Dani was Dani. And she would follow her to the world’s end. Even if it hurt, even if it meant not understanding, even if it meant fighting only for Dani to have a life with somebody else; somebody she loved so much to still speak of them the way Dani did, enough to give up the future. Somebody Dani still thought about the way Grace thought about Dani.

If the only thing she had to give Dani in the end was a chance to have someone else, someone who gave her more… then...

She shook her head slowly to herself.

“What do you need me to do?”

Dani swallowed away a lump in her throat. 

It wasn't right. It was too cruel to have to ask even more of Grace; too unfair that she had to ask it of her regardless, too unbearable to see her try to do it for her anyway, even now.

But she had to. They both had to.

“I need you to trust me Grace, just a little longer. And I want you to promise me one thing. I _need_ you to.”

Grace looked up at her doubtfully, sensing that whatever she was so reluctant to ask would not be easy – but she still waited, faithfully as ever, to hear it out.

It made it worse, Dani thought again. She hated finding out how much harder all of this was than she expected. She’d had so much time to prepare, and it hadn’t softened the blow one bit. For a moment she really thought her nerve might falter. But she didn't have that luxury - there could be no going back now..

“- I want you to swear to me that you will never volunteer for Augmentation.”

Grace’s eyes went wide.

“Dani, I can’t-“

“ _Promise_ me. Don't, not ever. No matter what happens. When the trials are over and the program is expanded. I need you to carry on leading the uplink tower raids, and you can't do that if you're Augmented.”

“Dani, we haven’t gotten any good intel from them in-“

“I _need_ you to do it. Please.”

Softly. Not the Commander – Dani.

Grace sighed.

And of course, in spite of everything, she knew there was only one answer.

She closed her eyes.

“All I ever wanted was to give you what I could. I did everything I could. I made myself strong as I could. And... fast, and good as I fucking could. You know how I feel about you Dani. I already know you don’t feel the same. I just wanted… I wanted you to understand how much I _would_ have done for you. Even if I never did it, I just wanted you to understand that.”

She looked at the floor, shined by thousands of bootsoles over years now, thinking about how strange it was to have this conversation somewhere people had been laughing a few hours before.

“I just wanted you to understand that about me.”

She got up to leave, and left her empty cup where it was.

“I’ll do anything you ask me to,” she said.

She took a moment to steady herself, and hesitated.

“Hadrell is a good soldier.”

Dani looked up at her and felt her heart break.

She wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t make it worse. Or, perhaps even more dangerously, better.

So she said nothing, and let Grace go.

She always seemed to be letting Grace go.


	2. 2. Past Simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. As I'm sure you're aware, there have been some current events. :D

“You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“So could you!” Grace retorted, and Dani was fucking _furious_ that she wasn’t wrong. “And I know you don’t like hearing it, but _that_ would matter a lot more.”

She was already sitting up in the infirmary bed and wide awake, and even with three different IV lines and fresh stitches everywhere, she was more than able to defend herself. Even if she didn’t quite understand _why_ Dani was so mad exactly, she was going to fight her corner.

Dani took a deep breath and shook her head; it made staples on the side of her scalp tug spitefully, and she winced.

Grace was right, again. She wasn’t quite being fair, again.

She rubbed her eyes and backed away, Grace patiently watching her wind down.

Not for the first time, Dani found herself wishing Grace would just be mad back more often; it would have been so much easier. Instead she looked calm. Understanding, even. 

No anger in her eyes, no reproach; she couldn’t possibly know how the fresh scars under them hurt Dani anyway, how each mark on Grace’s body accused of unforgiveable things. How they damned her, proof as they were that she was _already_ failing, that the cycle was _already_ in motion again towards its unbearable end.

She couldn’t possibly know any of that. None of it was her fault. And she was alive.

Dani let a long, slow breath, and stepped back in closer to the bed - one careful step only, so Grace wouldn’t see her limp.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Grace, for everything.”

Grace's gaze tilted away from her.

“I’m sorry for breaking my promise, Commander," she said quietly. “And I’m sorry about Hadrell.”

Dani just shook her head and waved it away.

“That’s enough of that now,” she said, and meant it, for all of it.

“You're notpissed with me?” Grace asked, trying a faint smile like it was meant as a joke.

Dani smiled back, and reached over. She rested her hand on the crown of Grace's head, probably the only part of her body that wasn't in the process of healing.

“Never. You've nothing to be sorry for. I owe you so much, apologies included. And I was wrong to ask you what I did. I’m so sorry.” 

She didn't drop her hand away right away. Things had changed again between them.

It felt like a lot longer than it was since their conversation in the Mess hall – so long that the quiet between them could almost be comfortable now, like it used to be.

“Anyway. Forget all that. How are you feeling?”

Grace looked at her arms, laid down stiffly in front of her with her palms up, and Dani found herself doing the same; her new scars were still angry looking under her stitches, and there was still some bruising here and there. That wouldn’t last long. One of her IV lines - Dani didn’t know which one - was a chemical just to stop her new body recovering so fast she’d close over the other two.

The idea she was being kept from healing herself felt, to Ramos, like a too-blunt metaphor.

“Not too bad," Grace concluded. "Looks worse than it feels, honestly. My hands still feel dumb, but that’s supposed to work itself out in a day or two. I’m thirsty all the time, but they told me to expect that from now on.”

“Shit, here, let me, I didn’t think-”

“Actually, yeah, I’d appreciate it.”

Dani moved next to her and reached for the pitcher on her locker, and settled down stiffly into a creaky chair to pour a cup.

She knew from the flick of Grace’s eyes that she could tell she was hurting - she looked back up at her, and in a single glance they had, lost and won the whole gentle argument over it.

Dani decided she could accept that defeat graciously at least.

She leaned in carefully and offered the cup to Grace, letting her come forward to take it so it wouldn’t spill. She waited quietly as Grace gulped it dry, and they both wondered how strange - and what a _relief_ \- it was for them both that something like this seemed to feel normal again somehow.

“Thanks.”

“Sure. Anything else I can do?”

“I’m good.”

Dani settled back into the chair, deciding she might as well leave her bad leg straight now anyhow.

“You know Grace…" she said slowly, "You’re going to have to do a lot more to take care of yourself from now on.”

“I'm just glad I can still fight," said Grace.

Dani shot her a look. 

"- And yeah, I know. I will."

“I'm glad. And I mean it. We’re down to fourteen active Augments now, fifteen once you’re graded fit, and we need every one we can get. From now on, you are not just risking your own life, you’re risking all the people who will die without you there to fight with them.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“-That means you do not have permission to take the kind of risks you have before. You do not have permission to get yourself killed, and if you do, I’ll have you court martialled for misuse of military materials.”

Grace smiled. Dani didn’t. She leaned forward to make sure there was no doubt.

“More than that, I will consider it to be failing me, personally. And you’ve never done that before, so please don't start now." 

Grace looked at her and nodded, and Dani's expression softened a little.

She hadn’t asked for promises this time, they both realized, but neither said it out loud.

"I need you to take care of yourself for me. Yes?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

The chair squeaked as Dani settled back into it.

She was starting to feel tired and _very_ stiff. Her painkillers must be wearing off, and she’d need to go soon to take another round.

She'd told Grace she wasn’t mad at her, and that was true, though she probably should have been.

She _was_ still furious though, at the officers who’d let Grace on the relief mission in Dani’s absence, which was just as irrational. After all, they had accepted her for the rescue for all the same reasons she _should_ have been selected for Spearhead - because, whatever else had happened, whatever distance there was between them these days, there wasn’t one other soldier in the whole resistance who would give more to get her back safe. Not one. Dani knew it. Grace knew it. Everyone else knew it. She'd proved it now in flesh and blood, in case there'd ever been a question. 

It was probably true too, if Dani meant to be fair, that there wasn't another soldier in the whole resistance who could have kept her _off_ the relief mission.

Neither point did much to cool her anger.

“They ever figure out the interference thing?”

“Hmm?”

“The interference thing. Augments, and the uplink towers?”

“Oh. No, no they never did.”

"Oh," said Grace, and frowned. "I guess I can’t do the uplink runs for you anymore. I'm sorry.”

Dani almost laughed.

“No. No, you can’t. It's okay. I think we’ve probably done as much as we’re going to with those anyhow.”

“Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Their smiles faded away around the same time. As usual, it was Grace who had the nerve to speak first.

“We _have_ to find the TDEs now, don’t we? After... to get another chance?”

“Yes,” said Dani, to both questions. At least it was only a lie for one.

There was a pause as she picked her next step that made Dani imagine artillery reloading, and she braced just the same.

“You know what I’m going to ask you.”

“Then you know how I’m going to answer you,” she said instantly.

To her credit Grace seemed to expect it. It felt like they’d had the same argument a thousand times over, though in fact they'd never discussed it again since the Mess hall - at least there was no acrimony in it anymore.

“I don’t… I don’t get it, what difference does it make now?”

“Please Grace. I don't want to argue, please not today.”

Grace looked at her, and for a moment, she could see her just as clearly as she used to. She could see how exhausted, how soaked through with fresh grief she really was, no matter how well she'd been holding up the front. 

She relaxed back against her pillows, conceding a ceasefire for now at least, and Dani's gratitude was almost worth it.

“Anyway," said Dani, "Hey - don't worry, I’ve got plans for the famous heroine of the South Tunnel. She’s such an inspiration to the troops, she can do _so_ many speeches and parade inspections and -”

Grace groaned theatrically; a peace offering.

Dani laughed back to her, as if her every expression wouldn’t be haunted for the rest of her life by her fresh butcher’s lines.

When they both settled back into quiet, Dani realized she could hear the ticking somewhere of an analogue clock. It was only barely more real than the sensation she felt of a trap closing around them both; a noose tightening, of water rising to swallow them.

You will never come to me with grey hair, she thought.


	3. 3. Present Continuous.

“Understood. Carry on securing what you can, I’ll inform the Commander.”

Grace’s second saluted her, hesitating for a moment as if he was considering whether to ask her what the hell it all meant. He apparently thought better of it, and broke away to do as charged, casting a glance back at her as she headed in the opposite direction.

Grace headed for the last building she’d seen Ramos in, past soldiers loading up tech she didn’t understand, or bandaging each other up.

It was all strangely normal, at least by resistance standards. As if not one of them could sense that there was anything different about this than any other battle they’d won.

Even if Grace didn’t _know_ better, it would all seemed a little off centre to her, just a little uncanny. She tried in vain to convince herself she was imagining it. That maybe she was just trying to justify coming here. She wasn't meant to be anywhere close; she had _technically_ committed insubordination to get here, when she'd heard units were pinned down, and Dani was among them.

She tried to reassure herself again her mind was playing tricks on her, that the knot in her stomach was foolishness, but she couldn’t even pretend she believed it.

She found herself hurrying, half distracted, towards Dani, her boots sliding in debris here and there. Stepping over rubble was long since second nature to her now, but the carpet of dead metal was dense enough to make for especially treacherous ground. There was more of it in one place than she could remember seeing for a long time, and the bits and pieces of endoskeletons rolled over and off each other or gave way underfoot.

It was jarring, too, when she looked at it the nature of it - some of these Rev models were relics she hadn’t encountered in the field for a very long time; some of them were brand new, and meant for highly specialized roles that seemed of place here. Some seemed incomplete, rather than battle damaged - some seemed too intact to have fallen at all. The soldiers around her seemed disinterested in this, glad simply to have the battle behind her, but it put Grace at even more unease than she would have been otherwise. 

Troubing details, in a deeply troubling scene; appropriate at least for the grim news she had to deliver to Dani.

She climbed the mound of rubble under the blast breach and stepped down into the corridor on the other side.

“Commander?”

Ramos turned to see Grace come in, ducking a little under the arch from habit, and her blood still ran as cold as the moment she'd heard Grace was here.

She wasn't meant to be. She was supposed to be a very long way away when they found this place, Dani had spent so long trying to make sure of it. Why did she have to be here, now? She'd tried to hard to keep her away, for so long.

Was it like a rut worn in the road by now? Was it harder and harder to change it every time? Had every failure reinforced the next? How many times had they played out these parts, Dani wondered with a sick, cold feeling on her skin - was the chance to change any of it lost before she'd ever existed? 

The closing trap, she thought. The tightening noose. The rising water.

Grace lined up to report, dutiful as ever, but Dani could sense something just short of panic in her.

“Legion’s assets have all been neutralized. The TDE chamber..."

Ramos felt the blood leaving her head, like she was cresting the peak of a rollercoaster; knowing something fearful was about to happen, and it would be endured no matter what. 

After all of everything this was it, one way or the other.

"-The techs say it's non-operational. " 

Dani's heart stopped.

She blinked.

"They're saying it doesn’t even look complete. I don’t understand, Commander.”

Dani stepped back, and nodded to herself, taking a deep breath, like she was stunned.

“So... that’s it then.”

“Commander… I don’t understand.”

Ramos’ hands went to her head.

She laughed, wildly, and for a second Grace wondered if the stress of the long battle had gotten to her.

“You weren’t supposed to be anywhere near here. My God, I thought… I thought…You scared the shit out of me when I heard you were inbound.”

She laughed again, an abrupt, unnatural kind of laugh, and Grace wondered what hysteria looked like.

“Dani - I don’t understand.”

Dani looked back to her, her eyes finding some focus again as if her name had broken a spell.

“Spearhead hit the thorium lines last night,” she said, in a still half dazed voice. “The other two viable sites are craters already. Legion has no functional TDEs, it would take years to stockpile resources to build more.”

Grace looked baffled. 

“I don't... So how do we send…?”

“We don’t. Nobody’s going back, Grace. I told you that and I meant it. We’re going to win this war here and now.”

Grace looked at her like one of them had gone mad, at a loss which question to ask first.

The machines, the TDE... Even the battle. None of it made sense. The fighting had been prolonged, but strangely incoherent – Legion’s troops kept coming, but they fought crudely, without the lethal efficiency and coordination she knew to expect normally. They just… kept coming, until they didn’t, clumsy and confused, like wind-up toys.

It was a long, hard battle, a siege - but not the battle she’d have expected to fight for something that was starting to feel momentous. 

"But... what..."

“I told you Grace," Dani said slowly. "I told you if it came to it, I could not do that to you. Not at any cost at all, not again.”

“Again…” Grace repeated, with a mad half smile of her own, like this was some strange joke she was waiting to understand.

“Again," Dani said. "I could not lose you again. I could not take your life again. You will not go back, again."

Grace took a half step back.

"I am so sorry Grace, that there is so much I have kept from you. I can tell you everything now, I will tell you anything you ask me.”

“It wasn’t… I don’t understand. The Soldier…”

“The _Soldier..._ was a tall blonde woman, with scars, and the bluest eyes I've ever seen. She was an Augment, and she was very beautiful. Even when she was dying, she was beautiful. She told me she wasn’t sorry, for what she’d done, for what I’d done to her-"

"No."

"- but _I_ was, Grace, I have been always. And I knew it could not happen again. I loved her, and she died for me, and when she did-"

"- You can't be-"

"-I swore I could never let that happen the way it did before. Not again.”

Grace took another step back, feeling suddenly drunk, feeling the room tilt.

“ -Even if it meant I must lie to her, and hurt her. Even if it meant I must keep her away. Even if I must ask her promise never to be Augmented, or if I must do what I could to make sure she will be far from the TDEs when we find them. Even if it meant figuring out how to win the war before she could ever _possibly_ go back.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Dani heard one of the tech team say quietly, and sensed other eyes turn to the two of them.

“It can’t…” Grace said, like she was leaning out on one foot over an abyss. “It couldn’t have been me before.”

“It could only ever be you,” said Dani simply, and stepped forward into the space she’d left. “It was always you. And I could not choose to do it again if it was you. If that was what was asked of me to win, I would fail. It would not matter. I would not survive it either way.”

Grace felt her rifle fall from her hands and drop to the end of its sling.

“Can’t be me,” she murmured in disbelief. “You told me you loved…”

Dani nodded.

“Yes. I did. And that I have, my whole life since. But I understand if... you can’t forgive me now for what I have not told you. I understand if you hate me for it. I think that's a conversation for later. But I just can’t be sorry if you live, Grace, I just can’t.”

"It can't have been me."

"Would you have let it be anyone else?"

No.

Of course not. Never.

Grace staggered backwards clumsily and sat against a lump of rubble without seeming to think of it, her rifle clattering off it as she did.

Of course she would never have let it be anyone else. No matter what promises were made or contrivances were engineered to stop her. Who else could she trust to do what needed to be done, give what needed to be given?

They both knew it. Of course they did. And they always had, hadn't they? Deep down?

Of course it was Grace who had gone back. 

"- I knew, a very long time ago, that there was never going to be anyone else for me."

Grace looked up at her, her mind still reeling.

Only the pure unreality of.. all of this, let her form a response at all.

"Hadrell...?" she said, even her mouth feeling numb.

"Hadrell was the right soldier for Spearhead, and we'll remember his sacrifice. All our soldiers' sacrifices."

“But... what happens with the war?” said Grace.

“We will win it here, and now. We have to Grace, we cannot let the machines keep going back, we cannot risk making things worse or losing. We must go forward and win the future for once and for all. I swore I would to a dear friend, a very long time ago, and it is a promise I _must_ keep. We must go forward now, it’s the only way, the cycle must end. We will chase Legion into its nest and destroy it. It has already begun to lose.”

“How?” Grace heard herself say from a distance, wondering if any of this was really happening, wondering if she was about to be roused from a dream in her bunk.

“The blackboxes you had for the uplink towers are not for intel gathering, they’re uploaders. A distributed weapon for a distributed enemy. We’ve been injecting fragments of code all over the grid for a long time. All through the system.”

“A virus?” Grace said, half understanding and understanding nothing at all.

“A cancer. Each different fragment harmless on its own, invisible, until there are so many through the whole network they start collating and activating, and replicating, crowding out everything else.”

Grace nodded, dimly, thinking of the stupefied waves of Revs, marching out of cover or fighting as if unaware of each other. Moving as if their basic and advanced functions were failing in random permutations. 

“- We started seeing the first signs in the Revs a few months ago, and two weeks ago we confirmed they’d started rolling out of Legion’s facilities already affected. They're coming off the production lines already infected, the production lines themselves are breaking down. Legion is completely compromised.”

Grace nodded again, thinking about the last few skirmishes she’d had, and how many times the tipping points came unexpectedly; how the casualties coming into the bunker lately seemed to have gone down, how the stories people told of their fights had gotten steadily more grandiose about the scale of the victory.

“This will not be over tomorrow, but we will be the ones to end it. We will build new things above the ground, we will grow things under the sun. I will invite you to my beach, like I wanted.”

Grace blinked slowly, and shook her head again.

“When I told you I… When I told you how I-“

“Then I knew I was running out of time. Everything had to happen faster. Spearhead, the augmentation, the uplink towers, everything. I tried to keep you away from,” - she gestured, “- all of this, just in case. In case this was all the same as before. But you wanted to try to scare me to death instead."

She smiled, but Grace could only stare.

.

"It doesn't matter now. The TDEs aren’t even finished, the thorium is gone. It can’t be the same this time.”

She smiled again, a full smile, a real smile like Grace hadn’t seen for years, and her face lit up like the sun.

“From here on out Grace, we will make our own fate.”

“Always… all of this, for The Soldier. For me?”

“Always,” Dani said, softly. “I’m sorry for every choice I have taken away from you by not telling you. There’s so much I am sorry for, to you.”

Grace sat with this quietly for a moment.

Dani crouched down in front of her, aware more of the other soldiers were starting to gather, to take notice of what was going on between them.

“From now on, I swear every choice is your own. Anything you ask me, I can tell you, I swear to God. You won’t even have to get grey hair first.”

She smiled, half sadly.

Grace looked right through her, trying to make sense of the enormous implications of all of this.

For the war, for the world, for her, for Dani.

She said nothing for a long time, and Dani let her. It was her right. More than her right.

“Think it’ll look good on me though,” she said eventually, and Dani laughed.

“I can’t wait to see it.”

Grace smiled hazily, still staring off distantly.

“Can’t wait to see your beach.”

Dani laughed again.

“Right.”

Grace let all this sink in a little more, for a few more moments.

There was so much she didn’t know where to start, so much she wasn’t sure how to even _start_ believing it.

And the most immediate part of it, the part she couldn’t quite make herself accept, repeating over and over like it might suddenly land home - _Dani had always loved the Soldier, the Soldier had always been her. Dani had always loved-_

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t not be true. She couldn’t not believe Dani – she didn’t dare to believe her now.

Dani had always loved the soldier. The soldier had always been her. Dani had built the resistance, pushed back the machines, all of it, for her soldier; for _her._

She looked around, finding her own amazement mirrored on the troops who’d started forming a loose circle around them, not even pretending to be unaware of the significance of the drama playing out, this religious revelation.

She had so much to understand, to ask, to accept.

But she could do that later – right now, her decisions were much simpler.

She stood up unsteadily, and after a moment, held out her hands to Dani to help her up too.

“C’mon. Got a lot to talk about back on base. I don’t want to hear you start bitching about your knees just yet.”

Dani let her pull her to her feet.

They looked at each other, a little uncertainly, Dani full of worry, until Grace gave into her instincts and pulled her into her arms. Like they did it all the time, like there was nobody else there, like all the complicated things to come between them for the last few years had never happened.

“I’m going to be super fucking mad at you when I get my head around all this,” she said around Dani’s hair.

“I don’t fucking care,” Dani said, making a muffled sound against her body that could have been a laugh or a cry. “I do not fucking care.”

They stayed like that for a few moments, long enough that it took the bravest one of the techs to clear her throat conspicuously.

“Sorry to interrupt Commander, but the chaff net won't hold much longer, we need to withdraw soon.”

Dani pulled back from Grace just enough to turn and thank the tech, with no hint of the embarrassment that made Grace turn her head out of sight at the same time.

Dani looked back up to Grace.

“Let’s go. You’ve got a few years worth of yelling at me to do back at base, I think. Let’s get that out of the way so you can decide what happens after it.”

Grace nodded, the rush of possibility starting to come to her like adrenaline.

They broke apart to head for the rendezvous and make arrangements for withdrawal; they walked past soldiers who either stared openly or went through the motions of finishing what they were doing, before they all followed suit - but their two hands lingered in each other’s hold until they got to the breach in the bunker wall, and they both stepped on out into the daylight.


End file.
